Social networking has made one thing clear: websites and applications need to provide users with experiences tailored to their preferences. This in-depth guide shows you how to build rich social frameworks, using open source technologies and specifications. You'll learn how to create third-party applications for existing sites, build engaging social graphs, and develop products to host your own socialized experience.

Programming Social Apps focuses on the OpenSocial platform, along with Apache Shindig, OAuth, OpenID, and other tools, demonstrating how they work together to help you solve practical issues. Each chapter uncovers a new layer in the construction of highly viral social applications and platforms.

Learn how to build applications on top of social containers, and leverage existing user data

Map user relationships with a social graph, and extend social links between users

Jonathan LeBlanc

Jonathan LeBlanc is a technology evangelist and senior software engineer working with the Yahoo! Developer Network in Sunnyvale, California. As a specialist in open source initiatives in social engagement services, Jonathan works with and promotes emerging technologies to aid in the adoption and utilization of new social development techniques. As a software engineer, Jonathan works extensively with social interaction development on the web, engaging in new methods for targeting the social footprint of users to drive the ideal of an open web.

The animal on the cover of Programming Social Applications is a Diana monkey (Cercopithecus diana), an endangered monkey found in areas of West Africa, includingLiberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Its name comes from the characteristic white stripe (or browband) across its forehead, which was thought to resemble the bow of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt. Its dark, sleek fur is contrasted by this telltale browband, as well as a white throat, underarms, and stripes on the thighs. It is considered one of the most beautiful of the Old World monkeys.Diana monkeys dwell in primeval forests. They do not make nests, though they retreat to higher levels of the trees at night. They’re rarely found on the ground, as they’re able to sustain their diet of insects, fruit, invertebrates, young leaves, and flowers at all levels of the canopy. The monkeys’ main predators include leopards, crowned hawk-eagles and other birds of prey, chimpanzees, and humans. To protect themselves from predators, Diana monkeys dwell in groups, usually consisting of one male and around 10 reproducing females and their offspring. In addition to alerting their fellow groupmembers to danger, Diana monkeys sound distinct alarm calls for different predators. Their reproductive biology isn’t very well understood, but it is known that their mating system is polygynous, breeding takes place year round, and females generally produce one offspring at a time.Diana monkeys are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), mostly due to destruction of habitat and hunting. Like most primates, they can carry diseases like tuberculosis and yellow fever and spread them to humans; however, they’re still hunted for food, medical research, and as pets.The cover image is from Lydekker’s Royal Natural History. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont’s TheSansMonoCondensed.

The book is an in-depth and thorough study of current scenario of social applications and its programming. It covers a vast area of technologies and most of them being open source is an another highlight of this book. It has got an engaging narrative and is rich with long descriptions, insightful thoughts, case studies that provide great hindsights and ample amount of examples. Though its long narrative at times makes you feel tiresome and could have been a bit more crisp.

The book true to its tradition of animal series proves to be a good read as well as a good reference. It is less of DIY book and don't venture into it if you want to have some ready bake code that you can put for your project. The book is more like a "Read it all, get a taste of it, then figure out what you want" .The high point of the book is it clearly distinguishes and explains between the various concepts and technologies prevailing in the field. It also tries to provide an insightful introduction to various concepts used and challenges faced in achieving the same. The downside of the book is its long narrative(Remember this an early release, hope the O'Reilly team will do a lot of cuts and polishing).

The book will be an awesome read for all full time or wannabe social application developers, while it can be a good reference book for anyone who wants to monetise his product through social applications. Social application users don't bother about this book at all unless you are interested in knowing how online interactions and connections are used by developers.